Friday, 14 June 2013

15 Second Review: Would you Rather (2012)

Torture porn lives!
Would you Rather distils many of the
subgenre’s key facets. The film is set in a restricted location and focuses on
the protagonists’ capacity to inflict suffering on fellow humans. More than
most other torture porn films, Would you
Rather is quite literal about posing ethical questions, asking the coerced protagonists
to choose whether self-interest is enough to stimulate immoral behaviours. Would you Rather’s trailer gives away
most of what occurs within. In the main, the film’s bluntness detracts from the
viewing experience, leaving less space for ethical rumination than most torture
porn films offer. That said, the movie certainly underlines that torture porn
is a subgenre driven by moral questions rather than gory displays (as its
detractors so commonly and erroneously posit). Would you Rather also pertinently distils the ethos that I
underline in my forthcoming book: that torture porn constitutes a form of philosophy in action. Doubters should read
Michael Sandel’s What Money Can’t
Buy:The Moral Limits of Markets –
an explicit call for public engagement with philosophical rumination - then
watching Would You Rather: both raise
uncannily similar questions, albeit in very different ways.